(no subject)
Marvel is doing another Civil War event and Bendis is writing it again. I guess to tie in to the movie that I haven't gotten around to watching yet. But, I mean, did anyone ever actually LIKE the first Civil War event? All I remember is people hating it, and saw a lot of hate for it again when the title for Cap 3 was announced. What I've heard of this one sounds like it might be even worse.
Somewhat related to this, another recent Marvel thing and a few other things over the years: if you are looking to have a shocking reveal and go "what is the most shocking, awful thing we can do that no one will see coming?" then you're probably already on the wrong track because you're looking for shock value, not story. But if your answer is "take this good guy people have followed for years and maybe decades and make hir evil" then there's about a 2% chance this will actually result in good storytelling and interesting developments, and a 98% chance you're just going to piss off your consumers and have to find a way to backed al out of it at the speed of light.
This kind of villainous fall/reveal can work in movies and books, and even single seasons of TV series, but once you make it years instead of hours, days or even months, you're probably lost. Redemption works better than villainous falls because people either already like the character but want better for them, or their current opinion of the character is more likely to improve than to go down, even iredemption arcs for more popular antagonists tend to be divisive at best.
ETA: I have been reminded that it was Millar, not Bendis, who wrote the first one. Bendis was probably behind some other Marvel Event around the time that I hated. (And, I mean, their increasing rise in popularity was somewhat related to my unintentionally dropping out of superhero comics that difn't involve Jubilee.)
ETA 2: Ah, yes, House of M and Secret Invasion...
Somewhat related to this, another recent Marvel thing and a few other things over the years: if you are looking to have a shocking reveal and go "what is the most shocking, awful thing we can do that no one will see coming?" then you're probably already on the wrong track because you're looking for shock value, not story. But if your answer is "take this good guy people have followed for years and maybe decades and make hir evil" then there's about a 2% chance this will actually result in good storytelling and interesting developments, and a 98% chance you're just going to piss off your consumers and have to find a way to backed al out of it at the speed of light.
This kind of villainous fall/reveal can work in movies and books, and even single seasons of TV series, but once you make it years instead of hours, days or even months, you're probably lost. Redemption works better than villainous falls because people either already like the character but want better for them, or their current opinion of the character is more likely to improve than to go down, even iredemption arcs for more popular antagonists tend to be divisive at best.
ETA: I have been reminded that it was Millar, not Bendis, who wrote the first one. Bendis was probably behind some other Marvel Event around the time that I hated. (And, I mean, their increasing rise in popularity was somewhat related to my unintentionally dropping out of superhero comics that difn't involve Jubilee.)
ETA 2: Ah, yes, House of M and Secret Invasion...